


boundless employment opportunities

by dabblingDilettante



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Career Change, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 21:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8416939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dabblingDilettante/pseuds/dabblingDilettante
Summary: Julia Burnsides is not the kind of woman to give up on anything.She has too many plans.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine if anyone who died could become a reaper.
> 
> In which I wanted to write a fic about Julia Burnsides. Half troubles, half being a pain in Kravitz's ass. Warning for death and some violence.

"Out late?"

"I'd rather not talk about it," Kravitz said.

Loose spirits were nothing new. An out-and-out jailbreak was a bit rarer. So of course, only the best were sent out to handle the situation, and only the best hobbled into the records room as though half the bones in his body had taken a long vacation. She hung over her desk with a pert smile, gauging the pink dust on his suit robes, and the markedly short stack of papers in thrown onto the opposite desk.

Laugh on the air, she asked, "Is that what you're going to say to the boss?"

He grunted. "I believe it is no business of a new hire to weasel one's way into these matters."

"Five years is hardly that new," she said, and stuck out her tongue. "My good sir."

Kravitz didn't bother with her game. Hobbling through the office door, through the neon light set off by spirits flitting outside the window, he sat down at the desk furthest from her. She stretched her arms out till her fingers brushed against sides of the cramped room. The Raven Queen didn't have a good sense of space. A keyboard flipped up through the top when he tapped his fingers across to begin his private report.

Hanging back in her chair, home was most often the sound of stone chipping through wood. Fire crackling its way against singed skin. Sawdust and cherry hanging warm on the air. But her chair was metal and cold to the sound of awkward ticker-tape.

"Five years is long enough to decide you all need better chairs," she said over his work.

The noise paused. He glanced up from the parchment beginning to curl itself off the desk. "...If you insist on staying late. I do have a message for you."

"Oh?"

"Quite." Kravitz's eyes fell again, too soft to meet hers. "He asked me to pass along that." He stopped to rub a thumb along the parchment. A grimace warped his expression till he glanced up and found her sitting there again. "Well. That he loves you."

"Oh," Julia said. Her feet sank into the ground, chair creaking under the pressure of her weight. Nothing smelled like much of anything around these parts. "Oh," she said again, a little louder.

"Quite," he repeated, and fell back to his work.

The dead weren't very good with the living. Love. Most of the other reapers didn't have a clue how to handle it anymore, past marked distance and nervous hands.

But Julia laughed. "That man never knows what to say when put on the spot. Next time, tell him to write a letter. I'd like that more than hearing what I already know."

Kravitz huffed. "With the kind of life that man lives, I doubt you'll have to wait long to tell him yourself."

"You really think so?" Julia asked, fingers netted together at her chin. "Care to make a bet?"

 

 

\---

 

 

"Sunny days are coming."

Julia scoffed.

"It's better across the way."

Julia rolled her eyes.

"He's not coming back."

And Julia picked up the box of supplies, balancing it on her hip, as she began the trek home.

Day in, day out, shadows of people crept into town. She could have sworn that the wars had ended. That Raven's Roost was flourishing, nested in the ashes of old tragedy. But wastrels escaped and came through their gates, waving their hands at her alongside nonsensical phrases. It meant her home was a safe haven. She and Magnus and their comrades had made the city safe. The thought made her feel no better about the darkness pushing down outside the gates.

He'd be home soon, though. Only days apart. Together, they could do anything.

So she walked to home. The door opened.

"Sunny days are coming."

"I heard you the first time," Julia snapped.

Splinters edged through cloth, pricking skin. She hefted the box back up on her hip.

"Julia, are you alright?" Behind a counter, the shopkeeper was staring at her. She could see the concern coloring other people's faces, glancing past her as they milled through the ship. "You've seemed stressed lately ... it's not just me. Everyone's noticed." Edging away the leather on their table. "Maybe you should take a break."

It was a few days. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing she hadn't waited through before, running her father's shop. A natural with people. Excellent at bartering. Not the sort to sit in a quiet room for hours to sculpt and shave away wood. Julia had too much to do. Too much to plan on her mind to sit for more than mere moments.

One person could give her enough good reason to rest. But Magnus was not here.

"So one man leaves, and the world has to stop for him? He can carve a good chair, but not that good." She laughed, too loud, and dropped her coins on the table. "He's been gone longer before. We both have."

"But it's been -"

"Days," Julia interrupted.

"Days," they agreed, the worry in their voice palpable.

"Besides, that man is the sort that would return to an unstocked shop and assume he'd climbed through the wrong door all together." She swiped the goods from their fingers. "Do you want him climbing through your window with a chair on his back? There's a rental fee for that."

The concern crackled under the force of their huff of laughter, falling to the floor like wood chips. That was Julia's talent - her art. The tiny smile carved into their face, as they looked away, trying to hide it.

"Stay safe!" they called, as she walked out the door.

"Never a problem!" she yelled back.

Walking home.

To the shop.

One day, Julia paused.

"Sunny days are coming."

Not many people had the strength to carry on so long. She stared at the wastrel, his nails scraping down the side of her box.

"You know, it's pretty sunny right now." she said. "Look at the sky! You're already here."

"He's not coming back," he muttered. Unaware of her presence or her words.

Raven's Roost was beautiful. Filled with hard-working people, glad to escape the hands of a tyrant. Every day, she was happy. Every day, she could work and fight. Every day, there was something she could do. The alleys hung hard over her. Hammer & Tongs was right around the bend.

Every day, she was on her way home.

So she said, "I wouldn't want him to."

Steel flashed in his eyes. "Then why do you stay?"

Walking from the main square, ready to start inventory for the day. Everyone knew who Julia was. The daughter of the greatest craftsman in town. The wife of their best carpenter. And - the best saleswoman. The best barterer. A woman like oil who could slip a chance out of any hand. An unspoken leader, aware of every shop in the crafting district, always there to lend a helping hand.

Always there.

Plenty aware.

"People around these parts aren't too interested in abandoning their home," she said.

"This is not natural," he murmured.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, my good dear sir."

Julia winked as she walked away. No matter how many people she spoke to, she had to make that same walk home. Stories could only change so much.

 

 

\---

 

 

In the ethereal plane, information was kept on anything from sticks and parchment and old whispers in jars to voicemails and touchscreens and tapes.

Julia wound up another cassette and slammed it into the wall. She still wasn't quite sure where they were from or how they worked, but when they played, the mirror would light up. Three women appeared on screen. They hung over another body, carefully winding away bandages from its face.

"Marks appear to have removed the body after rites." This was the boring part of the job. Rolling on deadpan, she spoke into the stone, "Three women. Marilyn Hyland, age 58. Cameron Hyland, age 26. Jun Hyland, age 25." And she paused the tape.

The three Hylands - Jun fell to her knees, obscuring the body as she wrapped her arms around it. The mirror flickered through hazy lines and Julia drew closer, squinting at the low quality. Marilyn stood back, hand held to her mouth. The darkness made it impossible to figure their expressions. But in Julia's mind, it was shock, from there to how Cameron held her hand to Jun's back.

Julia picked up the stone again. "The married couple brought along their child." When alive, her mouth would have been dry. She had seen lives lost before. But here, it was dusty and strange as she took a breath she didn't need. "Ceris Hyland, age 3."

Through the stone, she heard, "And?"

"That's all," Julia answered.

"I am asking if there anything that corroborates their story."

"Kravitz, no need to be so short. A parent is always going to be defensive about their children."

Even without a visual, she could see his scowl from the cluck that made it through, and she laughed.

"Or do you want to be the one to tell the Raven Queen you tossed a whole family in the slammer for a tiny visitation mistake?" she teased.

"Finish the report," he muttered.

The screen stayed frozen, nonstop static flickering lighting her skin. "Looks like they had to let their child play dead so they could sneak outside the village to visit her grandmother." Her eyes glazed over till she could see Cameron's tears. The blood beginning to leak out Marilyn's fingers, from how hard she bit down. Jun's back caught in mid-shake. "I doubt the couple realized their mother had used necromancy for herself."

"Is that so," he said.

"Sure is," Julia snapped back, playful and sharp.

"Fine. I'll apprehend the elder Hyland. ...I just can't imagine how she kept off our radar for this many years."

"There are bigger surprises."

Julia snapped off communications and pulled out the tape. She could still see that image, burned into the mirror.

"Case 11,343,528,982," she murmured. "Illegal resurrection of Ceris Hyland is closed."

The tape disintegrated.

People were willing to make many sacrifices for family. Julia wasn't the sort to look that gift-horse in the mouth.

 

 

\----

 

 

Raven's Roost was beautiful.

Julia knew everyone in the crafting district, and just how hard they had worked to make it beautiful. It had been a town project to recobble the town square after ridding themselves of a dictator - destroying his preferred project and making their own. She could measure the scar down her arm as someone had dropped a heavy stone, her leaping to catch it.

Magnus had said, "Another point for you, Jules."

"Who do you think taught you to leap first?" she said with her tongue out.

Maybe the two of them had been born into it. Fate had a funny hand that way. She didn't have much an opinion of gods, either, but she liked the ideas of some. A kind woman weaving a skein of life, celebrating life and trying to fix every broken thread that came from evil forces. Istus seemed nice. When Julia read late at night, there was something she appreciated about gods who knew not to interfere - not to play favorites.

She preferred playing by her own strength.

The library hung to her thoughts, some days. Julia paused at an intersection to watch the same wagon wheel itself past. It was a short detour. Instead of going to the leather worker, she'd go down the street, and walk up town. Ignore her work and go a different way. Her heart should have been slamming in her chest. There were seconds to consider. People waiting behind her.

But the wagons stopped and she had no choice but to walk forward.

She went to the leather worker. She began the walk home. She opened the door.

"Haven't you been working a little too hard?" the shopkeeper asked.

Julia ate toast and egg and jam cooked by the fireplace, next to her father. Magnus was still in the middle of nowhere.

"Maybe once he wins this, he'll come back from the big city with a couple of farspeech stones for us," he bellowed through laughter.

She copied his laugh. Julia had gotten very good at it and no one suspected anything. That was all that mattered.

"Julia?"

"Hm?" she said, through a daze.

"I'm scared."

"What?" She spun her head around, wide eyes landing on someone in the square. Their face was covered in soot and blood and - nothing at all.

"Are you okay, Julia?"

They were fine.

"Yes." She jerked her head away. "Fine as I can be after the load of work Magnus ran away from."

"Is he coming back?"

"Yeap. Real soon."

She walked through a door. She kept walking through doors. She memorized every door and every word and every sense because she was Julia Burnsides and she would keep everyone calm.

"Julia," the tanner said. "Where's your boxes?"

"They're right here," and she lifted nothing onto the counter. It took a moment of staring at her empty hands for her to say, "I got an upgrade. Anniversary gift from Magnus. He was so impressed to make wood invisible. I guess it should have been a secret, but I'd rather show this nonsense off."

"Maybe you should go home and rest."

She didn't argue. It wouldn't help anyone at this point. She'd learned that much a long time ago.

 

 

\----

 

 

Cleaning duty was a character building activity.

Though according to most of her seniors, it was a game of no-nose goes. Julia didn't mind much herself. She preferred fixing things herself. Meant it'd be done right the first time.

The River of the Dead was where most spent their time resting before going onto wherever it was spirits went. Julia had not been so lucky to be graced with such information, Kravitz daintily informing her that it was decidedly 'above her pay-grade.' From afar, it was a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. But sitting in a boat over it, it was mostly like a city square, squabbling chatter overwhelming the usually calm air of the ethereal plane.

Something had gotten stopped up at a dam. That happened, sometimes. Spirits that were trying too hard to hold on would crystalize along the edges. Some of them formed pretty trinkets like shells on a beach side. On a scale of 1 to 10, it was a solid 6 as a date spot - if alive. Dead, it was more a 2.

Julia jammed a spear into the blockade and started pushing spirits through. Complaints rang out, gratitude in smaller degrees, and she kept her hood close to her face. She did like the image of the job. Scythe swinging over her head, she started to pull up the offenders in her net. From here, it was apparently a matter of straining out the innocent sleepers, but she paused.

Something felt familiar, here.

"Marilyn," she murmured. "Marilyn ... Hyland?" It was a shot in the dark.

Spirits didn't have strong faces to make. When Julia depended on wide arms and hips to sell herself, convince people of her fortitude, it was a little terrifying to consider. But most of them didn't seem so bothered. But the spirit lit up.

"Been a long time since anyone called me that ... dearie, did we know each other on the other side?"

Julia opened her mouth, and closed it just as quickly. "Yes. Yes, I saw you around town a few times." She pressed her fist into her side, flourishing a hand with unbidden confidence. "I knew your daughter and her wife. Those two had a lovely child, talk of the town, really!"

"Oh ... oh they did." Hyland sunk into the river and Julia dragged her back up. "Is everything alright? Ceris ... did they grow up alright?"

"You've not seen them around here, have ya?"

"No. No, I haven't. But there's a lot I haven't seen around here, dearie. I don't remember too much these days."

Julia stroked her fingers through the spirit, feeling through strings, and left-overs. Threads connected every plane. People that close, she could almost reach it. In the back of her mind, she could see a child. Two women. Troubled, but alive, wonderfully alive.

"I think they'll be alright," Julia murmured.

"That's good." Hyland was fading fast.

Kravitz wasn't around. None of her coworkers were out this late, this far down the river, dealing with the backup and waste. But she didn't have a clue how far the Raven Queen could see. If she'd hear.

"Fuck it," Julia muttered. The Burnsides were a jump-first family. "Marilyn? You still in there?" The spirit lit up, faintly. "I've been wanting to tell you something for a long time. A long, long time. Because I know why you're here."

Fear streaked from the tips of her fingers, jolting back through her shoulders. She could feel her skin shrink till she was nothing but bone, but she went on.

"I know what you did for your daughters. Your grandkid." Reapers had no heart, but she did have marrow in her bones, burning up from that deep. There was something alive in her, even if it was just her fool spirit. "I saw. And I lied. Cause I woulda done the same thing." The spirit fell through her fingers.

Julia had. Once upon a time.

"I wanted to say, thank you." And she yelled, "Thank ya!"

"Dearie. Don't worry about me," she heard. Hyland was already so far down the river. "I've already heard that enough already. Just you worry about you, now."

The spirit floated from the river and Julia watched her float, far into the sky, the nebula that spun above their plane, to blink out of sight.

"Yeah," she said. "Might be a bit too late for that."

 

 

\----

 

 

One day, Julia slipped.

It was only fair. She deserved a break.

Julia walked the opposite direction she was meant to go. Down the beautiful cobble streets, she made her way to the ramparts at the end of the Crafting Square, and knocked on the door. Two times. Ten times. She opened it herself.

Over time, she'd learned about how it had happened. Even if she kept to a strict path, she had to notice the irregularities at some point.

There were no guards facing the west. Everyone was out, shopping, training, off to Neverwinter. Bribed, she wondered, but tried to keep the thought away. Cynicism would not be her choice. Cracks in the wall were harder to ignore, walking the path away and back home countless times. Julia climbed the tower in spiraling fury, jogging, running to the top.

And over the precipice, she could see him out there.

Fire. Cannons. A small feverish brigade of followers who had left with him, and Julia wondered again, just how many loyal to him remained in Raven's Roost. Her heart was too cold to be surprised anymore.

Through the gates, wagons made their way into town, loaded down with barrels. Julia had almost thought seeing it with her own eyes would make it easier to handle. The responsibility. But a fire burned behind her eyes, aching memory and horrible anger making her boil from inside out.

And someone screamed.

"When do you plan to stop this charade." She recognized that voice. "Julia Burnsides."

"I didn't realize every wastrel in town knew my name too." Not turning - Julia kept her eyes on the fires flying toward her home.

"Not quite the kind woman I'd been told about, now are you?"

"I'm good to my people. But I'm starting to think you're not my people, sir."

He chuckled and with the wind at her back, she turned to watch him straighten, pulling at a tie, and robes. He wasn't as tall as Magnus, but he struck a sharp figure, scythe in hand.

"We're on the same side here, Julia."

"It'll be Burnsides to you, sir," she said, swinging her arms across her chest.

"Fair enough." He cleared his throat. "My name is Kravitz. My job description is a bit too complex for casual acquaintances, but I imagine most of you all would refer to me as the Grim Reaper."

He paused, as if waiting for a response she refused to give.

And repeated himself. "Fair. Enough." Julia grinned at his terse glare. "I'm here for the poor unfortunate souls who have locked themselves into thinking they're alive." Bombs exploded. "Sometimes when large populations die, we end up with issues like this." Walls fell. "And my employer has to send in mediators to counsel the afflicted till they can let the illusion of life fall." She could feel her ribs shatter. "And if I'm to do that with any ease, I'll need your help."

"We're happy here," she said. Her lungs were punctured. It was a normal day. It had been. She walked home. She didn't make it through the door before the first explosion. "Most of us didn't even hear the cannons." Her ears had been blown out. It was always sunny - fiery - seared into her eyes. Julia didn't like to forget.

"Letting go will not destroy this," he murmured. "It is time to rest."

Heaving, she clung to the rampart, holding onto it as much as her grim smile. "The kind of chair it would take to get me to sit is above your paygrade, darling."

His face warped, but it felt no stranger an expression to her boiling eyes. "Julia Burnsides, I demand that you let go of this unnatural facade!"

"For what?" she yelled. Skin burned off her bones, falling in rivets from the shrapnel. "What good is there in letting these people be burned and crushed because of some disgusting criminal who couldn't let go?"

And in those words, she felt a blade sliding through her ribs, leaving her to shudder on the ground.

"It looks to me like you answered your own question."

And the city was fine again. No fire. No screaming. No fear. But she looked down below, and without her, people were shaking. Business was frozen.  Raven's Roost could not hold together without her, but she was too close to falling apart.

"You've known this whole time, haven't you, Burnsides."

"My father didn't raise a fool," she muttered.

"Well, then. Not that I've got that confirmed, I might have a job offer for you." And Kravitz gestured to the town below. "If we can escort these folks out before things loop back again."

 

 

\----

 

 

The Raven Queen was enormous. The Raven Queen could sit on Julia's shoulder and whisper in her ear, a thousand eyes through the slit in a skull. She didn't speak to anyone the same way. Kravitz stood against the wall through the interview.

"Promising people who died young," he told her. "She's got a sort of modus operandi. Istus always asks favors for people like that."

"Istus?" Julia mumbled. The Queen left her in a daze, unstuck between her new form and the memory she'd attached herself for decades. But she knew that one. "Istus."

"You've got the pronunciation down. She's the -"

Julia came back. "Goddess of Fate. She weaves the skein of all life. ...She's friends with the Raven Queen?"

"She knitted her a sweater one year for the office exchange. They've been inseparable since." He rolled his eyes. "Fate works in strange ways."

"She's giving us a second chance," Julia said, realization jolting her bone deep.

"I wanted to be a conductor," he mutters. "But plans don't mean much to fate."

"Nah," she said, cocky and assured.

The two of them fell into something approaching undead normalcy. Not quite apprentice and teacher - not quite partners. He tried too hard to be aloof, even through embarrassing failure. She was too smart to be schooled on everything. But she kept her lively color and forced some of it into him, too.

"Fun mission today?"

"A set of undead bards decided to compose an epic to appease me. What do you think."

"I'm glad to see you enjoying yourself for once."

Kravitz didn't give her many details of his own grisly fate. But she talked loudly about how she rushed in to save her father, and how he held up an entire fiery beam to let her run back out. About the people she tried to help. About the children she hid below the streets, away from collapsing buildings, as her ears bled, as she laughed.

And she laughed often.

"You do know how many souls perished, Burnsides."

"Less than there had to be," she answered, cheery sing-song. Much less.

Magnus would have returned at some point to see the destruction. Maybe he'd understand. The two of them always jumped in without thinking.

But she figured one thing.

A dozen bets over. Kravitz hiding marks from her, as though she didn't have the smarts to steal it away. As though the Raven Queen didn't turn a blind eye to fate. Magnus wouldn't let her down.

"And how do you know that."

She sat in her winnings. A beautiful deceased chair with enough soul to stand happily in the ethereal plane.

"I beat him here." She stretched back into the rosewood. "If someone jumped in first, he's gotta pick up the slack for the rest." For her sake. "Make sure you get that letter to him soon, darling."

 


End file.
